


i see danger (you’re invited)

by redskiesandsailboats



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Mixtape Exchange 2021, Alternate Universe - No Exy (All For The Game), But more like strangers to why am I so attracted to you, Chaos, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Past Drug Addiction, Soccer AU, Strangers to Lovers, and I know that’s the point, and clocks, and poorly made scavenger hunts, but it definitely set the mood, i listened to one song and one song only while writing this, just pure chaos, listen, need i say more?, there are water guns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28980450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redskiesandsailboats/pseuds/redskiesandsailboats
Summary: Every year at Palmetto State, around the middle of the first semester, the university hosts a campus wide game, as is tradition, that takes place within one night, eight to eight. Each grade is pitted against each other, and it has become a sort of right of passage.Andrew wants nothing to do with it.Neil is too paranoid for his own good.And Kevin has somehow lost said paranoid Neil.It is, predictably, a disaster.(Or, the one in which Andrew reluctantly hunts down a very sneaky Neil Josten, and he definitely doesn’t fall in love in the span of one night. That would just be absurd.)
Relationships: Kevin Day/Jeremy Knox/Jean Moreau, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 131
Kudos: 277
Collections: AFTG Mixtape Exchange 2021





	1. Let the Games Begin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nightquills](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightquills/gifts).



> Alright my friends, this was written for the AFTG Mixtape Exchange, for nightquills, and they requested some Andreil. Their song was Disaster Party, by Magic Giant, and at this point, I have listened to it far more times than strictly necessary, and my beta has listened to it a million times, and the amount of times it has gotten stuck in my head is truly baffling. 
> 
> This also ended up being so much longer than I anticipated, so I will be posting a chapter a day until it’s over. 
> 
> Anyways, I had so much fun writing this, and I hope you wonderful humans enjoy it, and just before you even get started, do yourself a favor and listen to Disaster Party. Just do it. You know you want to.

**7:32 PM**

The Night Games were a sort of right of passage at Palmetto State. Everyone joined in, and everyone played like it was to the death. 

It might as well have been, based on the horror stories. 

Andrew thought it was ridiculous.

Most people just used it as an excuse to get away with things that they normally never would, like some kind of 12 hour purge, expect with less murder. Hopefully. 

In theory, it was quite appealing, however Andrew made it a personal rule to never engage in potentially appealing things. It never ended well. Not for him, a least. 

Unfortunately, his cousin existed. 

Nicky seemed to reach peak insufferability when he set his mind on something. He would beg and beg and beg, until he finally got smart enough to try and bribe, but by that time, Andrew was so uninterested that he didn’t even bother saying no. He simply didn’t answer. 

The only reason he had participated in the games last year was because he just happened to be caught in the house that was considered the campus base, and he was not about to make that mistake again. 

“Andrew, are you sure you don’t want to come?” Nicky called from the entry way into the living room, where Andrew was sprawled on the couch with his phone held over his head, doing his best not to drop it directly onto his face. 

“My answer has not changed in the last five minutes, Nicky, shockingly enough,” Andrew said, not even bothering to glance over at him and endure his look of disappointment. 

Nicky let out the longest of long suffering sighs that he could possibly muster, dramatic as he was, and said nothing more. Andrew waited for the sound of the door clicking softly shut before letting his phone fall to rest on his chest. 

Nicky would get over it. 

Probably. 

It wasn’t his problem anymore. If Nicky wanted to run all over campus all night trying to win an impossible game, he could. 

If Aaron wanted to tiptoe around like he wasn't meeting his precious little cheerleader in the buffer of all the chaos, like some horny highschool fuckboy, that was fine. 

It didn't make a difference to Andrew. 

At least he would get some peace and quiet for once. 

Andrew sucked in a deep breath, rolling off the couch and catching his phone just as it was about to slide to the floor. It took approximately three seconds to open Spotify and start one of his carefully constructed playlists, made up mostly of songs that had been sent to him by either Bee or Renee, turning the volume up and feeling a little powerful as the sound filled the living room instead of his headphones. 

He let himself get a little lost in it from there. 

Sometime around the end of last year, Bee had asked him to try and find a useful hobby. She had phrased it in a much kinder way, but that was essentially what she said, and for reasons that Andrew was actively choosing not to address, he went along with it. 

He’d tried a lot of things, from reading to photography, to even knitting at one point, but the one thing that he truly found that he enjoyed to do, was bake. 

He liked the fact that there were technically rules, but most everyone disregarded them anyways. He liked the potential simplictly of it, as well as the potential complexity. 

It was calming, somehow.

It also never hurt that he got to eat whatever he chose to make. He liked to think of it as an added bonus. 

So. 

Andrew made his way to the kitchen, dropping his phone on the counter and starting to pull random ingredients from the cupboards, letting inspiration strike him on the way. 

(It was easy to let time slip by that way, easy to tune out everything but the music and the project in front of him, and he didn’t hate it.)

Andrew didn’t know exactly how much time had passed, but he was halfway through making chocolate croissants when the front door of the small house he shared with Aaron and Nicky slammed open, neatly shattering the tiny pocket of peace Andrew had managed to gather around himself. 

“Andrew!” someone called, but it was definitely not Nicky or Aaron. “Andrew, where are you?” 

It almost sounded like-

“Andrew, oh my god, fucking help-” Kevin said as he barreled into the kitchen, cutting off as he accidentaly bodyslammed into the doorframe. 

Andrew stared at him as he wheezed and doubled over, a bowl of melted chocolate in his hands. 

“Kevin,” he said calmly, neutrally. “What the fuck are you doing in my house?”

Kevin held up a hand, taking big gasping breaths, before straightening again. He looked a little crazed, with his hair blown all over the place and his face flushed from either adrenaline, exertion, or both. 

The fact that he was out of breath at all was impressive. He was probably the most in shape person Andrew had ever had the misfortune of meeting.

“I need,” Kevin gasped, leaning on the counter to steady himself, “your help.” 

Andrew blinked at him. Kevin blinked right back. 

“Absolutely not,” Andrew said, setting the bowl of chocolate down, sticking his finger in it, and proceeding to lick the chocolate off his finger. Kevin made a sort of pained sound, as predicted, so naturally, Andrew stuck his finger back in the bowl, making eye contact the entire time and daring Kevin to comment on his double dipping. 

“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” Kevin protested, ignoring Andrew’s bad kitchen manners, with obvious effort.

“I know that I do not want to do whatever it is you want me to do,” Andrew replied, turning around to check his first batch of croissants in the oven. 

“No, you don’t. Andrew, come on, pl-” Kevin cut himself off. Andrew didn’t move. “I have Johnny Walker Blue,” he said instead, after a tense moment of silence. 

Andrew sighed, quietly. 

“I’m listening,” he said, still not turning to face Kevin. 

Kevin pounced on the chance. “We lost Neil,” he said immediately, like he was scared Andrew was going to change his mind and bake him into the croissants. It wasn’t an entirely impractical fear. 

“What in the fuck is a Neil?” Andrew asked, opening the oven to take out the tray.

Kevin made a strangled sound, and Andrew turned just in time to watch him wring his hands like an anxious mother. 

“A first year,” he said, his face distraught. “Neil Josten. He’s on the soccer team. He was with us at the beginning of the night, and then suddenly, we turned around, and he was just gone.” 

Andrew raised an eyebrow. “And this is a problem because…?” 

“Because he’s a walking danger magnet!” Kevin practically yelled, raking a frustrated hand through his hair. “He goes looking for trouble just as much as it finds him. It’s ridiculous.”

“And why should I care?” Andrew asked. 

Kevin visibly wilted, melting onto the counter beside him. 

“Because I’m asking you to?” he tried weakly, wilting even more under the weight of Andrew’s glare. 

“You realize that just makes me want to say no, right?” 

Kevin put his head in his hands. 

“God, Andrew, I’m sorry, okay?” he said. “I-”

“Don’t,” Andrew said, cutting him off. Kevin raised his head again, something far too close to regret in his eyes. Andrew didn’t look too closely. “Just- don’t.”

“Andrew,” Kevin tried again, but swallowed it under Andrew’s glare. “Fine,” he said. “Riko is out there.” 

At that, Andrew froze, every muscle in his body going tense. 

“And as I said before, Neil is fucking stupid. He managed to piss Riko off within the first few weeks of the term,” Kevin said. 

Andrew dug his fingers into his arm, leftover rage from that summer frothing up in his veins. Kevin saw it, and using the tiny bit of intellect he was blessed with, chose that moment to shut up. 

He still knew Andrew well enough to know when to stop pushing, to stop asking. 

Andrew tried not to dwell on that thought. 

“Where?” Andrew asked finally, reaching behind him to turn off the stove. It looked like his croissants would have to wait. 

Kevin blinked at him. “Where what?”

“Where did you last see him?” 

Kevin’s mouth fell open. “Wait, you’ll do it?”

Andrew just looked at him. 

“Right, sorry, um.” Kevin raked a hand through his hair again, leaving it in haphazard spikes. “The Commons, I think?”

“Helpful,” Andrew quipped, grabbing his phone off the counter and pausing the music. He was going to murder this Neil Josten for getting himself lost. 

“Really?” Kevin asked. 

“No.” 

“Oh.”

“Get out of my house.”

Kevin straightened. “Right,” he said, eloquently, stepping out of Andrew's way and following him to the front door. “Hey Andrew?” 

“What.” Andrew said, once they had both made it out of the door, locking it behind him. 

“I-” Kevin stopped, looking supremely uncomfortable and painfully awkward, wringing his hands again before shoving them deep into his pockets. “Thank you.” 

Andrew glared at him again, saying nothing. Kevin winced a little, and then Andrew had had enough, turning on his heel and walking away, ignoring Kevin’s protests about how he didn’t even know what Neil looked like. 

That wouldn’t be a problem; social media existed. 

Andrew grit his teeth, tracing the outline of one of his knives in his armbands as he walked away into the night. 

This was not going to end well. 

++++

**8:30 PM**

“Someone's looking for you.”

Neil jumped, spinning around to find one of the cheerleaders- Marissa maybe?- behind him. It took him a moment to squash his immediate instinct to bolt; those were not kind words for someone with his past to hear. 

“Already?” he asked, over the ruthless pound of the baseline in whatever song was playing at full volume in the Fox Tower once he found his voice, and Marissa- Melissa?- smiled. 

“You’re just popular, I guess,” she said. Neil frowned. He most definitely was not. 

“Do you know who?” he asked, and Melissa- Matilda?- shrugged. 

“I dunno,” she said, sidling closer to him. “Jen didn’t say who it was, she just said there was someone asking around for Neil Josten, and then I turned around and there you were.” She smiled again, reaching out to touch his arm. “I guess we’ll just have to tell them I found you first.” 

Neil backed neatly out of her reach, already scanning the faces in the crowd. 

He had no clue who the fuck Jen was, but there was an extensive list of people that could be looking for him, and most of them did not particularly enjoy his presence. 

“Yeah, uh,” Neil said distractedly, backing even further away, his mind running in a million different directions. “Thanks.” With that, he turned and plunged into the crowd. 

He had left Matt and the others for  _ two seconds,  _ doubling back to search for his keys after he had reached inside his pocket and had a mini heart attack when he didn’t find them there. His search had taken him all the way back to the athlete’s dorms in the Tower and found them just laying there on the sidewalk, right outside the door. 

It’s not that he couldn’t function without his keys, he knew perfectly well how to pick a lock, but they were more than just keys for him. He had the keys to his dorm, as well as a spare key to Matt’s car, and the keys to the soccer stadium, and he would be damned if he lost them in a careless mistake. 

(They were a very physical reminder that Neil Josten was real, and he was not about to take that lightly.)

Unfortunately for him, as soon as he found his keys, it dawned on him that he hadn’t told anyone that he was doubling back. Because he was an idiot. 

And then, the clock had struck eight, the games had officially begun, and the resulting chaos was unimaginable.

Students swarmed from the dorms, flooding the Commons and the walkways, most of them yelling and sprinting as if their life depended on it, bolting from house to house as they attempted to make their way to the base, the Student Center, without getting caught. 

Matt had explained it very thoroughly to Neil on several different occasions. When he got excited about something, it was best just to let him talk. 

Each grade had a specific job. 

First years had it the easiest. To win, they simply had to get at least seventy five percent of their class to the base without getting caught and thrown in jail, which happened to be the library, where there was no talking allowed. If less than seventy five perfect of their class participated, then they were basically out of luck. How the staff managed to calculate all of this, Neil had no idea. 

Second years won by achieving the same goal, but with a twist. They could be employed by the upperclassmen to do their dirty work. Second years were the turncoats, the backstabbers. Sometimes, Matt explained, a class victory is simply not as good as whatever bribe an upperclassmen could come up with. 

The third years were the good cops, attempting to restore order as best as they could. Mainly, this meant they went around specifically targeting second year delinquents who had turned to the dark side. They won by putting seventy five percent of the second years in jail. 

The graduating class of fourth years had it the hardest. Their goal was to get at least half of the entire student body in jail, and they went to great lengths to achieve their goal. They bribed second years and they set traps for clueless first years. They attempted to corrupt the third years, and even got the staff to help them sometimes. Matt said it was best to avoid them at all costs. 

And finally, last but definitely not least, the fifth years. 

Most of the fifth years were athletes who had chosen to expand their time in school and therefore extend their time spent playing their sport, and they were ruthless. 

The fifth years had one job, and that job was to create chaos. As much chaos as they possibly could. They were lone rangers; they existed to fuck shit up, and they excelled at it. The fifth years won by derailing the game. 

And of course, that was just the surface. 

Any student could free other students, one at a time, from jail. The challenge was reaching it, getting in, and then making it safely back to the base on the other side of campus. 

Fifth years enjoyed initiating jail breaks, just to mix things up a bit. 

The staff also created elaborate scavenger hunts with things like bonus points and stashes of candy at the end. 

And then of course, of course, there were games within the game. More illicit games that most of the staff did not know about. 

There was betting and bribing and riddles, party hopping and inner house competitions, and all the while every grade had someone after them, everyone was being chased. 

And it all was supposed to take place within one night. Twelve hours. Eight to eight. 

It was either Neil’s worst nightmare, or a fever dream come to life, which still wasn't necessarily a good thing. He just couldn’t decide which. 

Matt would not shut up about it in the weeks leading up to it. Even Kevin seemed at least a little excited. Whether he was excited about the challenge itself, or the alcohol that was sure to be involved, Neil didn't care to find out. 

Neil finally made it out of the crowd surrounding the Fox Tower, his shoulders going tense at the sudden lack of people, the air charged with a sort of electricity. 

This was his element. The ball was in his court. 

If some random stranger wanted to come looking for him, that was fine. Let them try. Neil wasn't about to make it easy for them. 

If there was one thing Neil was indefinitely good at, it was disappearing. 

He smiled to himself, blending effortlessly into the shadows as he dove deeper into the heart of campus. 

_ Let the games begin.  _


	2. Places to Be (or Not)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew struggles, Neil is confused, but deviously so, and then Andrew struggles some more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: vague descriptions of scars

**9:28 PM**

It was significantly harder to find out what the fuck Neil Josten looked like than Andrew had originally thought. 

The guy was a ghost. 

He had a social media page, followed by Kevin, so it must be the right one, but there were no posts. 

He was probably on Kevin's social media  _ somewhere _ , but Kevin only posted the official group pictures of the soccer team, and the faces were too tiny to make out distinct features.

After that, Andrew had to go search through the team members accounts for any sign of Neil, coming up short until he reached Dan's. 

It was the most recent picture she had posted, a selfie of her and Matt, with someone that Andrew had never seen before squished between them. 

He had dark curls that could have been anything from brown to auburn in the low lighting, and his eyes were a startling pale blue, but probably the most off putting of all, was the extensive scarring across his cheeks. 

On his right side, it looked like someone had taken a knife to his face, carving vicious lines from his temple to the corner of his mouth. One the left, burn scars riddled his cheekbone. 

Quite against his will, Andrew was intrigued. 

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Andrew shut it down. Neil Josten was just a stranger with a pretty face, who happened to be important to Kevin. Not that being important to Kevin meant anything to Andrew. 

Whatever.

Andrew had a deal to keep. Alcohol to collect. Then he could go back to drifting through life and forget about all of this. 

He pocketed his phone, coming up the third place he thought Neil would possibly be, after finding no one at the Fox Tower and the dorms adjacent to it. 

The soccer stadium. 

As was tradition, the outer stadium was used for one of the prime party spots during the night games. The thing was, it was a staff run party, with actual events planned out and no alcohol involved, so the only people that usually went were the gullible first years, and the seniors looking to get all said gullible first years in jail. 

Maybe Neil was a gullible first year. Andrew didn't know. 

Somehow, he doubted it. 

At the very least, Andrew was banking on the fact that all jocks operated on the same wavelength. If Neil was anything like Kevin, he lived and breathed soccer. 

Oh God, Andrew hoped Neil was not exactly like Kevin. 

He could only handle so much Kevin at a time. 

And that was a very minimal amount as it was. 

"Hey," Andrew said, putting a hand up to stop someone in their path without actually touching them. They stopped obediently, looking supremely pissed about it. "Do you know where Neil Josten is?" 

The guy stared at him. "Who the fuck is Neil Josten?" he asked.

Andrew moved on. 

He repeated this process several times, as tedious as it was. 

(See, Kevin and the others were under the impression that Andrew was good at finding things. People. He had a gift for knowing what was happening around campus on any given day, but the truth was, he simply knew who to ask. And how.)

Palmetto state wasn't actually that big of a university; people didn't just vanish. 

Finally, the fifth person he stopped and asked had something useful for him. 

"Wait, yeah actually," the girl said. She had a vixen uniform on, and her eyes were just a bit too bright to be fully sober. "He said he was going to the Commons?" 

Andrew hummed. 

He didn't thank her, just moved on. The Commons weren't far. 

Just before he was about to walk out into the deepening night, someone grabbed his arm, and in seconds he was throwing the hand off and reaching for a knife, only to realize that it was just another cheerleader. 

She looked startled for all of two seconds before smoothing down her face in an impressive show of indifference that didn't actually work. 

"Did you say you were looking for Neil?" She asked. After a moment, Andrew nodded. "Well he told me that he was going to Ripley Hall, not the Commons." 

Andrew paused. 

He  _ told  _ her? 

How suspicious.

"Also, you need a band," she added cheerfully, holding up a circle of bright red fabric that would identify him as a second year. 

"I'm not playing," he told her flatly. 

She smiled, undeterred. 

He really needed to get out more. Instil the fear of God into the general population so that they would remember to leave him the fuck alone. 

"Sure you are," the cheerleader said, shoving the band into his hands. "If you're outside your dorm room you're playing. Rules are rules." With that, she spun on her heel, her hair very nearly smacking him across the face in her retreat. 

It took him about two seconds to neatly shove that little interaction out of his brain forever, focusing on the task at hand. 

Namely this: Neil Josten it seemed, for whatever reason, did not want to be found. 

++++

“Jean?” 

Jean turned around so fast that he almost spilled the two drinks he was holding, a startled look on his face. As soon as he caught sight of Neil, his expression cleared. 

“Neil,” he said, by way of greeting, a rare smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. 

Neil just looked at him, ignoring the party pulsing around them. The music was just loud enough that he had to shout to be heard over it. 

“You don’t go here,” he said at last. Jean’s smile widened. 

“I do not,” he agreed, something mischievous in the glint of his eyes. He beckoned with his head for Neil to follow him, leading the way to the back of whoever’s house this was, setting his drinks on the railing of the back porch. 

There was a pool in the backyard, and it was currently occupied with what looked like most of the boy’s volleyball team and swim team, trying their best to drown each other. Nevermind that it was most definitely not swimming weather. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Neil asked, watching people on the sides of the pool exchange money after someone finally slammed a ball on one end of the pool. Neil didn’t know where the ball even came from. 

“Visiting my sister,” Jean replied, taking a delicate sip of one of the drinks. 

Neil looked at him, then back at the back at the concerning display of testosterone in the pool. 

“Not here, idiot,” Jean said, rolling his eyes. “Tomorrow. In Charleston.” 

“Oh,” Neil said, ever the eloquent. “So you decided to stop in Palmetto?” 

“Can’t I stop by every once in a while to visit friends?” Jean asked. 

“Well, yeah,” Neil said, turning in a slow circle to scan the backyard for anyone they knew, and coming up short. “But from California? In the middle of the school year? To here?” Neil turned back to Jean, who was smirking. “Do you even know whose house this is?” 

“No,” Jean said, taking another sip. He didn’t offer any to Neil, knowing that he wouldn’t accept. “I’m meeting Kevin.” 

Neil blinked. “Here?” 

“Here,” Jean agreed. 

“I’m a little confused,” Neil said. Jean smiled again. Really smiled. That was twice in about fifteen minutes. What in the fuck was in that California air? 

“Jean!” someone called, and both Jean and Neil looked over to the pool, where someone was getting out, shaking water out of his hair and running up to the porch. Neil recognized him almost immediately. 

“You brought  _ Knox? _ ” he asked, and that time, Jean laughed. 

In one swift movement,  _ the  _ Jeremy Knox was scaling the outside of the porch, holding onto the railing right where Jean was standing. The smile on his face was radiant, and he had eyes only for Jean. 

“Fuck,” he said, shivering violently, but somehow still looking incandescently happy. “It’s freezing out here.”

“You are the one who wanted to go swimming,” Jean said, letting Jeremy steal his cup right out of his hands. 

“Still confused,” Neil said, abruptly terrified that they were about to start making out in front of him and not quite mentaly prepared for that yet. Thankfully, they both looked at him, saving him from that sight, at least for the time being. 

“That sounds like a you problem,” Jean said, glaring at Neil like he very much wanted to make out with Jeremy right then, and did not appreciate the interruption. 

Jeremy just smiled. “Hi,” he said. “Josten, right?” 

Despite his best efforts, Neil was not unaffected by that.  _ The  _ Jeremy Knox remembered his name. “Yeah,” he said. “And you’re from California. At Palmetto State. In the middle of the semester. To see Kevin.” 

“You don’t sound all that confused to me,” Jeremy said. 

“Speaking of,” Jean said, glancing at his phone. “He’s here.” 

Jeremy lit up at those words, and Neil decided that he most definitely did not want to know exactly what was going on. He would float around in blissful ignorance, thank you very much. 

“Fuck, okay,” he said. “I’m gonna go now.” 

“What?” Jean asked, smirking again. “Don’t want to see Kevin?” 

“Not particularly, no,” Neil said. “I’m hiding from him.”

Jeremy raised his eyebrows. “Hiding from him?” 

“Hiding from everyone, actually,” Neil corrected. “I’m being hunted.”

“Well that’s dramatic,” Jean said. 

“Always,” Neil agreed. “Hey, do me a favor, would you?”

Jeremy and Jean both said, “Sure,” and “No thanks,” at the same time, respectively. 

“If you run into someone looking for me, other than Kevin.” He smiled, backing up to the sliding glass doors and opening them. “Tell them to try harder.” 

He didn’t wait for their reply, turning and disappearing into the darkened, shadow filled house. 

He looked back once, just catching sight of someone that could only be Kevin slipping outside through the exact doors. 

Neil smiled to himself, pulling his hood up over his head and turning back to the front doors, only to accidentally clip shoulders with someone in his haste to get out. He only caught sight of messy blond hair, lots and lots of piercings, and an excessive amount of black clothing, muttering a quick apology before continuing out the door. 

He had places to not be. 

Trails to set. 

Games to play and win. 

And the night was still terribly young. 

++++

Andrew hated quite a lot of things, but house parties were near the top of the list. 

He couldn’t stand how crowded they were. How dark and stuffy and loud. They had the deafening club music that bars had, with none of the anonymity. They had the wild drunkenness with none of the good alcohol.

Andrew brushed at his shoulder, like he could erase the feeling of the stranger's shoulder running into him, setting his eyes on the sliding glass doors in the back of the room that Kevin had disappeared out of. 

He needed a different approach. 

To his mild surprise, upon stepping onto the back porch, he found not only Kevin, but also Jean Moreau and Jeremy Knox. Which was. Unexpected. 

As was the fact that Jeremy was dripping wet. And sitting on the porch railing. With Jean standing between his legs. 

And he was holding Kevin’s hand. 

Andrew blinked, pocketing that sight for later. 

“Kevin,” he said, to make his presence abundantly known, and Kevin jumped at least two feet in the air spinning around so fast that he almost fell over. Both Jeremy and Jean reached out to steady him. 

“Andrew,” he said, his voice at least two octaves too high. Andrew raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Don't  _ do that."  _

"Do what," Andrew said, effecting innocence that absolutely no one believed.

"Oh my god, I swear I lose ten years of my life every time I see you," Kevin said, pressing a hand to chest like his heart was about to give out. 

"The feeling is mutual," Andrew said. 

“Wait,” Kevin said, like he just registered who he was talking to. “Wait, did you find Neil?” 

"I don't know,"Andrew replied, as sarcastically as he possibly could, glancing around at the obvious lack of Neil. "Did I?" 

“Then what the fuck are you doing here?” Kevin demanded. “I’m paying you for this.” 

“Not enough,” Andrew replied. 

“Who’s this?” Jeremy asked, politely but somehow still infuriatingly genuine. 

“Andrew,” Kevin replied, at the same time that Andrew deadpanned, “Your worst nightmare.” 

There was a beat of silence, in which no one knew quite what to make of that. 

It was a gift Andrew had: the ability to make people that uncomfortable. He relished in it. 

Baffle them with your bullshit and all that. 

Then Jean snorted, breaking the trance, and then Jeremy started laughing too, and Kevin just looked semi-fondly exasperated. 

"Did you say you were looking for Neil?" Jean asked, leaning a little farther back into Jeremy. 

Kevin seemed to lose another ten years of his life at the question, bringing his free hand up to massage his temples. 

"Yes," he sighed. "He's missing." 

"Is he really?" Jeremy said, his smile never waning. "Well that's funny, we just saw him." 

Both Kevin and Andrew froze. 

Kevin turned to look at Jeremy, still holding his hand. 

"You what?" he asked. 

Jeremy's smile was blinding. "He was literally just here, like, four seconds before you walked out." 

Kevin stared at him. 

Andrew stared at all of them. 

Wow, they were all idiots. 

"What do you mean,  _ he was just here?"  _ Kevin all but shrieked, throwing his hands up, but still not getting go of Jeremy's hand. "How the hell did I miss him?" 

"I don't think he wants you to find him," Jean piped up, examining his nails. 

Kevin swivels to look at Jean instead of Jeremy. 

"What?" He demanded. "Why? Why would he not want me to find him?" 

The look Jean gave Kevin in that moment was far too fond for Andrew's liking. It made him kind of want to gag. 

"He said he was hiding," Jean said, shrugging. 

"From me?" Kevin asked. 

"From everyone." 

"Smart move," Andrew cut in. 

"He also said to tell you, I'm assuming," Jean continued, pointing past Kevin at Andrew. "To try harder." 

Andrew blinked at him. "Excuse me?" 

"Yup," Jeremy said, his grin turning so quickly from positively angelic to shit eating that Andrew got whiplash. "Those were his exact words. 'Tell them to try harder.'" 

Kevin made an impressively strangled sound. He was good at that. 

"Kevin," Andrew said, waiting until Kevin looked at him to say, "I can't promise Josten will be returned to you alive." 

Kevin buried his face in his hands, and consequently, in Jeremy's hand. 

"Because I am going to murder him." 

Jean practically cackled. 

Kevin made an incoherent sound that didn't even closely resemble English. 

"Did he say where he was going?" Andrew asked, because he would be stupid not to. 

"Nope," Jeremy said, popping the 'p' at the end. 

"Of course he didn't." 

"I hate him," Kevin moaned, his face still buried in his hands. Jeremy used his free hand to gently pat his head. Kevin looked up, his eyes fixing on the middle distance, looking slightly crazed. "He's going to run so many laps tomorrow." 

"That's nice, Kev," Jeremy said. 

Kevin frowned. "What am I saying?" he asked no one in particular. "He would enjoy that." 

Andrew left Kevin to his crisis, slipping back through the house like a ghost, the sound of Jeremy's laughter following him out. 

He had places to be. 

Trails to follow. 

Games to fucking obliderate. 

And the night was so terribly young. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought, I’m constantly curious :)


	3. Better Luck Next Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some water guns, an involuntary trip to the library, and one very charming Seth Gordon. :)

**10:16 PM**

Neil sighed, barely refraining from rolling his eyes. 

"Really guys?" he asked, turning in a slow circle, scanning the ring of people surrounding him. "Really?" 

No one replied. 

As one, the ring of poorly masked people raised their guns, training them on Neil. 

Nerf guns. 

The third years had Nerf guns, apparently. 

“Ready,” someone said. “Aim.” 

“Don’t miss,” Neil muttered. 

“Fire!” 

As one, the group fired, and Neil discovered, to his abject horror, that some of them were in fact, water guns. He was soaked within seconds, cursing and sputtering in the onslaught; he gathered his wits just enough to charge at the ring around him and break through, forcibly ripping a water gun out of someone’s hands. 

And then, he did the one thing he knew how to do best: he ran. 

Shouts followed him, but he didn’t slow, holding onto to that stupid water gun like it was his lifeline. 

It was too familiar. Too reminiscent. He could taste fear under his tongue, and it was just as rancid as it would be if it was warranted, if it was real. 

_ It’s not real.  _

_ She’s not here.  _

_ You are not running for your life.  _

_ This is a game.  _

(Neil had never been particularly good at games.)

Neil glanced down at the hideous orange plastic of the water gun, half expecting to find the unforgiving black of the handgun his mother had forced him to carry with him everywhere he went, and in that split second of distraction, he collided with someone, sending them both sprawling on the soft grass just off the sidewalk. 

Neil’s breath left him in a gasp, but he didn’t let himself stop, shoving himself to his feet as fast as he could and leveling the gun at the person on the ground before him in one swift movement. 

Silence reigned for a moment, and then: “Is that a nerf gun?” 

Neil blinked. 

It took him approximately three seconds to properly strangle all the scattered fragments of himself back together into a shaky echo of a human being. He took a shallow breath and slipped into the mask of someone just a little bit braver than he had any right to be. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he replied, making a show of closing one eye and aiming the gun at the stranger's head. “Any last words?” 

The stranger scoffed, and Neil’s eyes zeroed in on the glint of a silver ring on his lower lip, for reasons he could not begin to comprehend. 

Then he blinked and the man was surging forward, hooking a foot around Neil’s ankle and reaching to yank the gun out of his hands. Between one moment and the next, they had switched places, Neil on the ground with the stranger training the gun at his head.

“Better luck next time,” the man said.

Neil laughed, surprising even himself when it sounded genuine. “Fuck you,” he said, but he was still smiling. 

The man scowled, aiming the gun at his chest and pulling the trigger. 

“Hey!” Neil said, throwing up his hands to defend himself against the frigid water. “What the fuck was that for?” He sat up, wiping at his already soaked shirt. 

“Explains why you’re wet,” the man replied, which wasn’t much of a reply at all. 

“No shit,” Neil said. 

“Done running yet?” 

“Not remotely,” Neil responded, without thinking, then he paused, looking back up at the man in front of him. “Wait, what?” 

“You heard me,” the man said. “Are you done making my life difficult?” 

Neil squinted at him from his vantage point on the ground. He had blond hair that was almost too pale to be natural, and Neil couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, but it was nearly impossible to miss his piercings. He had so many piercings. They climbed up his ears in delicate hoops and chains, and of course, there was the lip ring, as well as an eyebrow piercing. 

“Do I know you?” he asked, because surely he would remember if he did. Surely. 

“No,” the man replied. “You know Kevin.” 

Neil blinked. “Kevin,” he said. 

“You know,” Piercing Guy said. “Tall. Superiority complex. Unhealthy obsession with unamerican football.” 

“You know Kevin?” 

“Unwillingly.”

“How do you know Kevin?” 

“You’re really stuck on this Kevin thing aren’t you?” 

“”What? No, I-” Neil sputtered, still on the ground. “Kevin just doesn’t talk to anyone outside the soccer team,” he explained. “I didn’t know he had other friends.”

“I’m not his friend.” 

“Other acquaintances,” Neil corrected. 

“That’s not a real thing,” the man said, talking a step back, but not offering to help Neil up. 

“Um, I’m pretty sure it is,” Neil said. 

“Not in my world it’s not.” 

“Ok, then what are we?” Neil asked, and the man raised an eyebrow at him, looking supremely unimpressed. 

“Nothing,” he replied. Neil laughed. 

“I’m flattered,” he said, finally getting to his feet, and the man’s eyes followed him up. 

“Don’t be.”

“You can’t tell me what to do, whatever-the-fuck-your-name-is,” Neil said, and the man scowled, again. 

“Andrew,” he said. “It’s Andrew.”

“Andrew,” Neil echoed, letting his face break into a smile. “Can I have my gun back?” 

“No,” Andrew said. “I’m taking you back to Kevin now.”

"And why ever would you do that?" Neil asked. 

“Because I can only take so much bullshit in one night and the threshold was exceeded an hour ago.”

“But it’s only nine.”

“Perfect,” Andrew said, turning and beginning to walk away, like he assumed Neil would just follow him. “All the more time to drown my sorrows in obscenely expensive alcohol and chocolate croissants.”

“Well okay then,” Neil said, and because he was a fool, got up to follow Andrew. “What sorrows?” 

“The crippling weight of existence and life in general.” 

Neil couldn’t help himself. He snorted, making no attempt to hide it, even as Andrew shot him a glare over his shoulder. 

“And I thought I was dramatic,” Neil said. 

Andrew didn’t respond. 

They even didn’t make it halfway down the sidewalk. They didn’t even have time to run. Between one moment and the next, they were completely surrounded, at least a dozen water guns shoved in their faces. 

“Not again,” Neil moaned, but that time, they didn’t give him a chance to break through their lines, advancing immediately and forcibly twisting his arms behind him to tie up with a bandana. 

“Don’t touch me,” he heard Andrew snarl, and looked up just in time to witness Andrew quite forcefully place his fist in someone’s face. They guy dropped like a stone. It was glorious. 

No one else seemed to think so. 

“What the fuck?” someone yelled in outrage, as several of them rushed to help their fallen friend. Andrew just shook out his hand with a blank expression on his face. “What are you, a psychopath?” 

Andrew didn’t even blink. 

Neil did. “I don’t really feel like that is a proportional response,” he said, and Andrew glanced at him. 

“None of this is a proportional response,” someone yelled back, halfway to hysterical. 

“No,” Neil said, shaking his head, “Andrew’s response was pretty proportional.” 

“Punching someone in the face?” 

Neil shrugged, which was a little difficult to do, seeing as his arms were tied behind his back. 

“You’re the ones who ambushed us with guns and started tying us up.” 

“They’re  _ water guns _ .” 

“And?” 

“Alright, that’s it,” the first person said. “You’re done.”

“Am I?” 

“Take a deep breath,” the guy says, “maybe look at the sky.” A hand clamped down on Neil's upper arm and he was unceremoniously shoved forward. He barely avoided tripping over his own feet and falling flat on his face. “Savor that last taste of freedom.”

“Why are you people all so dramatic?” Neil muttered, throwing a glance back at Andrew, who was walking obediently between two people much bigger than he was. Neither of them were touching him. 

Well.

That just happened. 

Being frog marched across half the campus to the hulking shape of the library quickly became one of Neil’s least favorite experiences to date, and by the time they were ushered inside and registered like actual inmates, he was rather peeved. 

The lady at the front desk greeted them with a warm smile, congratulating the group of ninja wannabes on a job well done, and Neil immediately hated her. 

“Thank you, lovelies,” she said, waving them out. “We’ll take it from here.” 

She waited for the front door to fall closed before turning to Andrew and Neil, her eyes bright with something that could only be described as mischief. 

And then, to Neil’s great shock, she said, “Hello, Andrew.” 

Andrew didn’t say anything to that, but he did incline his head in a sort of greeting, which was just as shocking, if not more. 

Neil barely knew him, and even he could tell that Andrew was not the type to just greet people for the sake of being polite. 

“I’ll admit,” the lady said. “I did not expect to see you in here tonight at all.” 

Andrew shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels and adopting an entirely different air about him. He stood taller, but somehow looked more relaxed at the same time, like he was simply sinking a little deeper into his own skin. 

“Either you think far too highly of me, or not highly enough,” he said. 

The lady smiled. “Agree to disagree,” she said, and Andrew nodded. 

Neil blinked, unsure as to what just happened. 

“And who is this?” The lady said, turning from Andrew to look at Neil, and Neil had to fight the urge to shrink back from her gaze. 

“Neil,” Andrew replied, without looking at him. He managed to pack a lifetime's worth of exasperation and annoyance into that one word, despite the fact that they had known each other for all of ten minutes. 

“Hello, Neil,” the lady said, smiling warmly at him, but not offering her hand. “I’m Dr. Dobson, but you can call me Betsy, or Bee, or even ‘hey you’, whatever you are most comfortable with.” 

Neil had no idea how to respond to that, so he didn’t really. Dr. Dobson moved on without missing a beat. 

“Well,” she said, “I would say welcome, but this is, in fact, jail, so I feel like that wouldn’t be very appreciated or appropriate, so I’m just going to go over some things.” 

Neil crossed his arms, but when that didn’t feel right, he switched to shoving his hands into his pockets. He stood like that for all of two seconds before realizing that he was unconsciously mirroring Andrew and immediately went back to crossing his arms. 

“There is no talking in the library,” Dr. Dobson said. “No exceptions. Those found talking will be transferred to the basement, making it harder for them to be rescued. The only way to escape is to leave with someone who is free, if they can find a way in. Make sense?” 

Andrew nodded, and after a moment, so did Neil. 

“Good,” Dr. Dobson said, smiling. “In that case, right this way.” She led them down the hall until they reached the large double doors leading into the main part of the library, pulling one open for them. “Good luck boys,” she said, as they passed her, shutting the door softly behind them. 

The library was completely dark. 

“Well,” Neil said, after an extended moment. “That was unfortunate.” 

He looked over at Andrew just in time to see him close his eyes and take a deep breath in through his nose. Like he was mentally counting to ten in his head. Neil didn’t blame him. 

“I hate you,” Andrew said, without opening his eyes. 

Neil didn’t blame him for that either. 

Neil was insufferable. 

“That sounds like an issue,” Neil said, as seriously as he possibly could. “Not an ish-me.” 

The sigh that escaped Andrew’s lips at that was long suffering and pained. 

“I’m going to pretend you never said that,” he said, starting off into the dark labyrinth of the library without looking at Neil. Neil followed him, because of course he did. 

“Let me know how that works out for you,” Neil returned cheerfully, scanning the shadows for any signs of life. 

“I will do no such thing,” Andrew said. 

“Wait, aren't we supposed to be silent?” Neil asked, doing nothing to change the volume of his voice, turning in a full circle to scan the balconies that surrounded the first floor. Still nothing. 

“Technically,” Andrew said, turning down one of the many corridors of books without warning. 

“Technically?” Neil asked, using the corner of the bookshelf as leverage to swing himself around the unexpected corner. 

“Depends on what rules you're playing to.” 

“Ok sure, makes perfect sense,” Neil said, meaning it made no sense at all. “Also, why is there literally no one in here?” 

Andrew didn’t reply, turning yet another corner. Neil was just intrigued enough to refrain from simply going to one of the many windows and getting out that way. 

“This is not creepy at all,” Neil muttered to himself. 

They made it to the very back of the library, where Andrew pulled open a door that Neil did not see at first, disappearing through it without a word. Neil followed to find a set of stairs, leading down. 

“Um,” Neil said, feeling very much like he was just talking to himself at this point. “Isn’t this exactly where we do  _ not  _ want to be? You know, if we have any hope of being rescued.” 

Andrew threw him an unimpressed glance over his shoulder as he pushed through yet another door at the bottom of the stairs. 

“If you want to wait around to be rescued until the sun comes up, be my guest,” he said. 

“Generous,” Neil said. 

Andrew let the heavy door swing shut and almost crush Neil. “I try.” 

Just then, a flood light was flipped on, piercing the heavy darkness and momentarily blinding Neil as it shone directly into their eyes. 

“Who dares disturb my slumber?” A deep voice growled from the shadow, like they were trying for intimidating but only reached the equivalent of a cheesy Disney villain. 

“Fuck off Seth,” Andrew said, one hand over his eyes to shield them. 

“Wrong answer,” Seth said, but then the light pointed up instead of at them, and the room was cast into a watery white glow. It wasn’t particularly large, but there was a door right behind Seth, guarded by two other people, and Neil could just make out the aggressive pound of a baseline from the other side. “Am I dreaming right now, or is that Andrew Minyard?” 

“That’s my evil twin,” Andrew deadpanned, attempting to step around Seth but stopping short when Seth shot out an arm to stop him. 

“Lies and slander,” Seth said, his grin sharp and cocky, “Aaron was just here with someone who’s name starts with a ‘k’ and ends with ‘aitlyn’, weird, I know.” Andrew backed up, out of Seth’s reach, putting him squarely in front of Neil so that Neil had to peak out over his shoulder to see the rest of the room. Seth’s eyes flicked to him, surprise flashing through them for a moment before disappearing under all that arrogance. “So,” Seth said, “to what do I owe the pleasure?” 

“Luck,” Andrew said. 

Seth laughed. “Thought you didn’t believe in luck.”

“The bad sort,” Andrew corrected. “Obviously.”

“Yours or mine?” Seth asked. 

“Remains to be seen,” Andrew said, with a dismissive flick of his fingers. “Now let us pass.”

“Who’s your friend?” Seth asked, instead of answering, finally fixing his undivided attention on Neil, who was still behind Andrew. “I thought you dropped the habit of picking up strays.” 

“No one,” Andrew said, at the same time as Neil said, “Excuse me?” 

Seth laughed again, the flood light wobbling in his hands with the movement. “You’re a terrible liar,” he informed Andrew, shaking his head. 

“Just let us pass,” Andrew said, and Neil stepped out from behind him. 

Seth smiled, raising an eyebrow. “Why?” He asked, almost gleefully. “Convince me.” 

“Fuck you,” Andrew said, but it had little to no heat. “The fate of the world is at stake.”

“Bullshit,” Seth said. “You can do better.” 

“Kevin owes me alcohol for returning his lost human to him,” Andrew said.

Seth snapped, pointing an accusing finger in Andrew’s face. “So he is a stray,” he said triumphantly. “Also, that’s much better. Much more believable.” 

Andrew calmly flipped him off. 

“I’m right here,” said Neil.

“Good for you,” Seth said. “Now Andrew, tell me.” Seth moved the floodlight so that it was once again shining in their eyes, only to move it away again. “Why should I go let you collect your just reward?” 

“Because if you don’t let us through,” Andrew said. “We will let ourselves through.” 

“Ooo scary,” Seth said. “See also: unconvincing. But fear not.” He held up a finger, like he was about to impart his endless wisdom on them. Neil had the reckless urge to plug his ears, just to be contrary. “I have a solution.”

“No thanks,” Andrew said, but Seth ignored him. 

“I would like to cash in my favor,” he proclaimed. 

Andrew pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. “Now?” He asked. 

“Naturally,” Seth said. “This is when it will most inconvenience you.”

“You are the worst,” Andrew said, looking up, and sighing deeply. He sighed a lot, Neil had noticed. The world itself seemed to inconvenience Andrew Minyard. “What do you want?” 

“I’m glad you asked,” Seth said cheerfully. “Lucky for you, I know exactly what I want.” He paused, probably for dramatic effect. “I want The Pot.” He smiled, spreading his hands like a benevolent ruler granting his subjects world peace. “Promise to find it and deliver it to me, and I will let you go, plus, then we’ll be even.” 

Andrew looked at him. “You could have asked for anything,” he said. “And you chose that.” 

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Seth said. “It’s quite simple, really.” 

“So is murder, and yet.”

Seth scoffed. “Murder is not simple.” 

“Sure it is,” Andrew said, adjusting his armbands casually. Neil didn’t miss the way Seth’s eyes flicked to follow the movement warily. “It’s getting away with murder that’s a bit tricky, but minor details.” 

“Take it or leave it,” said Seth. “I don’t actually want to stand here all night.” 

Surprisingly, Andrew glanced at Neil, a question lurking behind his eyes that Neil didn’t quite know how to interpret. He simply stared back at him, and Andrew seemed to find his answer despite Neil’s abject lack of understanding, because he turned back to Seth and said, simply, “Fine.” 

The smile Seth gave them was blinding, as was the third assaulting of their eyes by floodlight. 

“Wonderful,” he said, switching off the floodlight with a flick of his wrist and plunging them back into darkness. “It’s a deal.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought, I am perpetually, unavoidably, consumed by curiosity :)


	4. Try Not to Lose Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The scavenger hunt begins, Neil discovers he is very bad at riddles, and Andrew might be having an existential crisis but it’s fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized that y’all might want the link to the song that inspired this fic, bc actually going to Spotify and finding it is a lot of work, I get it, and I’m sorry I didn’t include it sooner oops
> 
> You can listen to Disaster Party [here](https://open.spotify.com/track/0tZQkiMamZC9PVKeIDtvTP?si=Apsk6-FqR8S30z7C-8IVgA)

**11:47 PM**

Andrew sucked in a silent, deep breath as they emerged into the outside world once again and the wind slammed right through the thin fabric of his sweatshirt. 

Neil cursed softly behind him, which was unsurprising, seeing as he was still a little wet from their run in with the water gun idiots. 

If Andrew believed in regret, he would probably regret ever leaving his house that night. 

“So,” Neil said, falling into step with him like he had been doing it for years. “Are you going to explain any of that to me, or are you just going to continue to refrain from answering any and all of my questions?” 

Andrew decidedly did not look at him. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he said. He could practically hear Neil rolling his eyes. 

“Fine,” Neil said. “Fine. What if we did a trade?” Andrew did spare him a glance then, his eyes skating off Neil’s and fixing on the night in front of them, once again. “I ask you a very relevant question so as to enlighten myself to the situation you have so cunningly plunged us into, and you can ask me anything you want to.” 

“Us?” Andrew asked, the word slipping past his lips without his permission. 

Neil shot him a funny look, scoffing. “Don’t tell me you thought I wouldn’t come with you.” Andrew just looked at him. “You aren’t getting rid of me that easily.” 

“You don’t have to,” Andrew said, after a pause. “It’s not your debt to pay.” 

“Drew,” Neil said, “Can I call you Drew?”’

Andrew almost stopped in his tracks, staring at Neil. “No,” he said.

“Drew,” Neil continued, like Andrew hadn’t spoken. “First of all, you’re being dramatic again. Not my debt to pay? Really? What are we, pirates?” Andrew really did stop then, but Neil took in stride, swinging around to face him. “Second of all, what part of ‘I don’t want to go back to Kevin’ did you not understand?” 

Andrew didn’t say anything, and Neil raised an eyebrow at him. 

“So,” he said. “What in the hell is The Pot and why are we going to fetch it for your lovely friend Sam back there?” 

Andrew stared at him for a moment longer, his brain doing an impressive impression of the spinning wheel of death that his laptop liked to taunt him with when it had slow connection. 

“It’s Seth,” he said.

“Whatever.”

“And he’s not my friend.”

“Do you have  _ any  _ friends?”

“And The Pot is basically a sad college student version of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” 

Neil blinked at him, then laughed, once, and Andrew pushed past him to continue walking. 

“You’re kidding,” Neil said, and Andrew just looked at him. “What even is this game?”

Andrew didn’t have a good answer for that, so he didn’t say anything.

“Okay, so why can’t Shane get it for himself?” 

Andrew didn’t look at him that time. 

(Where the fuck did this kid come from?)

“Because it’s planned and hidden by the fifth years. They’re not allowed to find it.” 

“Oh,” Neil said, nodding. “That’s stupid.” 

“Most things are,” Andrew replied, and he could feel Neil prepping for another question, so he said, “Shut your mouth, it’s my turn now.” 

Neil’s mouth clicked shut. 

Andrew took his time, as he did with most things, letting Neil squirm in the silence. 

“Your accent,” he said at last. 

“Is that your best attempt at a question?” Neil asked. “Because if so, it sucked.” 

“Where are you from?” Andrew tried again. “And why Palmetto?”

“See, now that’s too many questions,” Neil said. “That’s two. You only get one at a time.”

“You asked two,” Andrew pointed out, and he could practically see Neil mentally flipping through their conversation to find where he asked a second question. 

“Huh,” he said at last. “It seems I did. Excellent observation, Drew.”

“Don’t call me that.” 

“To answer your question,” Neil said, ignoring him. “Great Britain, right outside of London, and I chose Palmetto because of the soccer team.” 

Andrew looked at him to find such a look of defiance in Neil’s eyes.

“Could you be any more vague?” He asked. 

“Yes,” Neil replied. “Yes I can. Also, that was, in fact, three questions, so ha.” 

Andrew glared at him. Neil’s answering smile was so angelic that it was completely unbelievable. 

“Okay, my turn,” Neil said. “Why does Steve owe you a debt?” 

Andrew didn’t even bother correcting him that time. 

He didn’t bother dancing around his answer either. If Neil thought he was dramatic, so be it. 

“He saved my brother’s life,” Andrew said. 

If that was at all shocking to Neil, he didn’t show it, ruminating over it for a moment, before simply saying, “huh.” 

Truly, a man of many words. 

“Okay, my turn again,” Neil said, after a moment. 

“That is not how this works,” Andrew protested. “Do you know how to count?”

“Of course not,” Neil said. “I’m a jock, we’re all incredibly stupid, and who are you to dictate how my game works? You’re the one who insisted that rules were irrelevant.”

“Did I really?” 

“You did. In the library.” They had reached the administration’s office by that point, slipping in through a conveniently unlocked door. “Also, you’re the one who asked three questions instead of matching my two, so I get an extra.” 

The entire building was dark, just like all the other buildings all over campus, per the campus wide black out, and just like the library, it was totally deserted. 

“Are you even still confused?”

“Always,” Neil said. “For example: how do we plan on finding this Pot, and what happens if someone else has already found it? And how come there was no one in the library jail? That still makes no sense to me. And why the fuck did Kevin send  _ you _ to find me? You didn’t even know what I looked like.” 

“That’s more than one question.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” 

“To answer the first,” Andrew said, coming up to the front desk and neatly plucking the bright pink sticky note off of the front. It had a little, messy, handwritten note scrawled down one side and wrapping around the back, because apparently, some people got really excited about the ‘no rules’ thing. “Clues.”

“Okay, wait, what?” Neil exclaimed, trying and failing to snatch the note from out of Andrew’s hands. “How did you know where to find this? What the fuck?”

Andrew let a smirk dance across his lips for a split second, before smoothing it down with the pad of his thumb. “One never tells,” he said, scanning the note quickly before letting it drift to the ground. 

Neil snatched it deftly out of the air, but Andrew was already moving, and he had to scramble to catch up. 

“This is Morse code,” he said.

“Really?” Andrew replied, as mockingly as he dared. “I hadn’t noticed.” 

“It just says ‘manage your time’,” Neil said, and Andrew stopped in his tracks. He turned around to find Neil frowning at the little note. 

“Interesting,” Andrew said, because he was also a man of many words. “In that case, we will be going this way.” 

Neil looked up just as he was passing, walking the opposite direction, and he once again was forced to catch up. 

“This is a terrible clue,” he said. 

“They always are,” Andrew replied. 

“So how do you know where you’re going?”

“I never do,” Andrew said. 

Just then, Neil’s hand shot out, latching onto his upper arm and yanking him off the sidewalk, and into the shadows of a nearby building. He let go almost immediately, which was fortunate for him, unless he felt like dealing with a broken nose. 

“I’m sorry,” Neil whispered, pressing a finger to his lips to keep Andrew from cussing him out. “I’m sorry.” 

It was then that Andrew realized how close they were to each other, and not a second later, the sound of cocky, possibly drunk laughter reached his ears. 

He stilled. 

For several, long, slightly tortuous moments, they stood there in breathless silence, waiting for the group of rowdy students to pass.

Andrew definitely did not stare at Neil’s lips. 

Definitely not. 

That would be absurd. 

“I’m sorry,” Neil said, again, once the group had fully passed, and took a step back. “I didn’t mean to grab you like that, you can punch me if you want.” 

Andrew blinked, reorienting himself. “Shut up,” he said, at last, shoving Neil away from him. The gesture was not nearly as aggressive as he intended it to be, and he had to rip his gaze away from Neil’s resulting smile. 

What in the-

He was so fucked. 

Neil fell into step with him again, and Andrew deliberately did not look at him. 

“Aright,” Neil said. “So where are we going?” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Andrew replied. Because he only knew one snarky comeback apparently.

"That is literally why I asked." 

Andrew resolved then and there to simply stop talking to Neil. It would solve all of his problems. 

“Fine Arts building,” he said, without his own permission.

Mission: failed. 

“Interesting,” Neil said, as the Fine Arts building in question crept into view. 

He fell blessedly quiet after that, following Andrew into the building and through three different corridors to the back corner of the first floor. 

The only reason Andrew knew that this room existed was because of Renee. She somehow knew almost everyone in the Art department, despite not actually majoring in anything art related. 

This particular room just happened to be right across from the fashion and design room, home away from home of none other than Allison Reynolds, and Andrew learned very quickly that whenever Renee had seemingly disappeared, she was probably there. 

The design room was locked and dark, like every other room on the floor, but the last one was lit, the door hanging open. 

It was an extension of the carpentry room, and it was filled with clocks. 

There was a campus rumor surrounding the particular professor that haunted the carpentry and wood shops, Professor Quare; most students were convinced that he was a murder, and often talked to ghosts.

Andrew didn’t believe a single word.

The only reason those rumors ran rampant was because Quare did nothing to stop them. If anything, he fed them. 

But there wasn’t a single malicious bone in his body. He was harmless. 

Still, his little shop of traditional wooden clocks was the perfect place to hide a clue to freak out the more gullible members of the student body. 

Andrew went straight in, immediately starting to comb the entire room for signs of a clue, but Neil stopped in the doorway. 

“Well this isn’t creepy at all,” he said.

“Heard the horror stories?” Andrew asked, running a hand along the nearest clocks. There was no little note in sight. 

When Neil didn’t reply, he looked up, following Neil’s gaze to the window that connected the room to the larger woodshop next door, and then all he could say was, “Oh.” 

There, on the window, written in a sickening blood red scrawl, was a message. 

_ Keep a secret, if you can,  _ the message said,  _ whisper it to the darkness, under the lights. Find the next clue at the curtain call, within the applause of opening night.  _

It was definitely window paint, but in the low lighting, it did look like blood. 

“Be a little bit more obvious, why don’t you,” Andrew muttered to himself, turning back to Neil, already mapping out the fastest route to the other side of campus, where the auditorium was nestled at the very edge of the University's property, only to hesitate. 

All the color had drained from Neil’s face, throwing his scars into sharp contrast. 

He looked like he had seen a ghost. 

“Neil,” Andrew said, cautiously. Neil didn’t blink. “Neil.” 

That time Neil looked at him, his eyes dragging away from the red on the window like it was a physical feat, and not quite focusing on Andrew’s own. 

“Hi,” Andrew said, once they finally did focus. 

Neil drew in a shaky breath. “Hi,” he said back, his voice quiet. 

“What the fuck,” Andrew said, unable to make it a question. 

“What?” Neil asked, his voice already returning to normal, slipping so quietly back into the version of himself that Andrew was familiar with that he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for it. 

Andrew raised an unimpressed eyebrow. 

“Don’t play dumb,” he said. 

Neil looked away, his gaze skipping over the window and fixing on the doorway. 

“It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m fine.”

Andrew raised the other eyebrow. 

Sure. 

“Out,” he said, and Neil looked back at him, mouth open to protest, but Andrew just snapped in his face, twice, pointing at the door. “We have places to be.” 

And for a moment, Neil hesitated, his surprise at the sudden drop of the subject palpable. It was understandable but misplaced. Andrew had no intentions of completely dropping the subject. 

Neil must have concluded the same thing after searching Andrew’s face, because eventually, he nodded, leading the way out of the room before letting Andrew take his place and following him out of the building. 

They walked the entire way to the auditorium in silence. 

Shockingly enough, it was an easy silence, full enough that neither Andrew nor Neil felt the urge to try to fill it. 

It allowed Andrew to breath, just for a moment. 

Once they crossed the threshold into the dark theater, however, Neil broke the little bubble they had managed to build. 

“Bad memories,” he said, without looking at Andrew, and Andrew stopped at the edge of the first row of seating. 

“What?” He asked. 

“I know you're going to ask,” Neil said, stopping at the next row and glancing back when he realized that Andrew had stopped. “So I’m beating you to it.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Andrew said. Neil just smiled. 

“No,” he agreed. “I don’t.”

“You’ll make us uneven.” 

Neil turned fully around then, tipping his head to the side ever so slightly, regarding Andrew quizzically. “Not everything has to be a game you know,” he said. 

“Yes,” Andrew said without thinking. “It does.”

Neil raised his eyebrows. “Why’s that?”

“Because-“ Andrew stopped, thought about his response, and started again. “If it’s a game, then there are rules, and boundaries that cannot be crossed.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, for lack of something better to do with them, rocking slightly back on his heels. “If it's a game,” he said, his voice growing softer and softer. “Then it doesn’t have to be real.” 

Neil looked at him, his face unreadable. 

Then he said, inexplicably: “There, now we’re even.”

(And Andrew found himself pulling in a deep breath that he didn’t know he needed.) 

((And Neil smiled at him again.))

(And suddenly, that very same breath was leaving his lungs.)

((And, and, and, Andrew’s feet were firmly planted on the ground, but he felt as if there were miles between him and the safety of the very same.))

(He hated it.)

Neil titled his head the other way, beckoning Andrew to the stage at the front of the auditorium and effectively forcing him to refocus. 

He just wanted to get this over with to-

To what? 

Go back to his house and never reemerge? Become the cryptic that Nicky was always predicting he would become? 

Andrew forcefully shook himself out of that train of thought. 

He didn’t need that right now. 

Neil reached the stage first, hoisting himself up in once smooth motion, whereas Andrew chose to take the stairs. 

Andrew watched as Neil turned in a full circle on the stage. There was only one spotlight on, and Neil had positioned himself in the center of it, the light tumbling down from the eaves and combing through his hair with delicate fingers, spilling off his shoulders like wilted wings. 

He looked out of place on the stage, but not in a bad way. More in a way that just made Andrew want to look. 

“I don’t know about you,” Neil said, yanking Andrew back to there and then. “But I don’t see anything.” 

“That’s because there’s nothing to see,” a voice said, from the wings, and both of them went rigid. 

They looked at each other, Andrew taking a step closer to Neil as they both turned back to peer into the shadows. 

“Are we about to be murdered?” Neil asked, and the voice laughed. 

“That depends,” it said. “How good are you at riddles?” 

“Abysmal,” Neil said, and the voice laughed again. “Are we allowed to see who we are talking to, or are you going to continue to be one with the shadows?” 

There was a pause, and then the wings shifted, and a girl stepped out. 

She was barely taller than Andrew, with dark skin and darker hair, and a smile dancing upon her lips that looked two shades too innocent to be believable. 

“Robin?” Neil asked, his voice laced with surprise, and Robin dipped into a mock curtsey. 

“At your service,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. 

“Why the hell are you lurking in the wings of the auditorium?” Neil asked. Andrew thought it was a valid question. 

“I have actually been paid a lot of money to lurk in the shadows and mess with people’s heads,” she said, looking far too proud of herself. “So you can put away your judgy face now.” 

Neil held up his hands in surrender, his face melting into a smile, and Andrew cleared his throat. 

Neil glanced at him. “Right,” he said. “Did you say something about a riddle?”

“I did,” Robin said, her smile turning into something wicked. “Answer it correctly, and you get the next clue. Get it wrong, and you automatically go to jail.” 

“Oh no,” Neil deadpanned. “Not to jail, please, anything but jail.” 

“Riddle,” Andrew said, cutting him off, and Robin looked at him for the first time. 

There was no recognition in her eyes, but Andrew knew her. 

She was the recruit he had picked out of the giant stack of incoming first years Wymack had thrown at him last March. 

“Really?” Kevin had asked, looking at her file, always so skeptical. 

“Yes,” Andrew had replied. “Her.” 

Wymack had accepted it without comment, probably because Andrew never pushed for anything soccer related. Never showed he cared at all. And he didn’t. Not really. Not in the ways that Kevin thought he needed to. 

But he had pushed for her. 

That was before the disastrous summer. 

Before Andrew pulled himself out of everything, cut every one of his ties until he was basically drifting, farther and farther, everyday. 

So no, she didn’t know him. 

And he didn’t care.

He had a job to do. 

“Can you ask nicely?” Robin asked, raising an eyebrow at him. 

“No,” Andrew said. 

She laughed, the sound light and easy, like she did it all the time. “I guess that’s fair,” she said. “I’ll just have to make it harder.”

Andrew waited as she paused for dramatic effect, already impatient. 

“What word in the English language does the following: the first two letters signify a male, the first three letters signify a female, the first four letters signify greatness, while the entire world signifies a great woman?" 

Neil blinked, laughing almost nervously. "Wait, hold on," he said. "Can you repeat that?" 

Robin did, but Andrew wasn't listening that time. 

He’d always been terrible at spoken riddles. If he could see it, write it down or something, it usually became painfully obvious to him, but with no visual clues, it was harder. 

Of course, Cass had loved riddles. 

She used to have a little book full of them that she would carry around in her purse, and whenever they had to wait for anything, anything at all, she would pull it out and read them out loud for Andrew to solve. 

And for a time, Andrew had loved riddles too. 

(Now, however, he wasn’t even sure he knew what love was.)

((Any type of love.))

(The love of things was materialistic in his mind. The love of places was stupid, because somehow, someday, you would always end up leaving that place, dragged endlessly away to a new one. The love of ideas was out of reach, abstract; why would he love something that he could not touch, could not hold onto? And the love of people. Perhaps the most useless of all.

People had power that the other so-called types of love didn’t, because people could love back, and more often than not, they didn’t know how to. Or they simply chose not to. Or they tried and failed, and walked away.

The world liked to squash devotion and passion and mutual attraction into a fist sized paper cutout that always resembled a heart, and call it love.

They liked to fold and crease the word until it didn’t even resemble the action anymore; creating origami organs, small and thin and unrecognizable.

So no, Andrew didn’t think he needed love. The word was too small for him.

Too restricting, too permanent, and not permanent enough, all at the same time. Too-)

Andrew snapped his fingers, pointing at Neil as a lightbulb went off in his head. 

“Heroine,” he said. 

Neil blinked at him. “Um, what?”

“Heroine,” Andrew repeated. “He, her, hero, heroine.”

“That was fast,” Robin said, looking vaguely impressed. 

“Well shit, Drew,” Neil said, with that insufferable smirk of his. “You’re smarter than you look.”

“Sure I am,” Andrew responded. “A regular Sherlock Holmes. Can we have our clue now?” 

“Eager are we?” Robin asked, then laughed as Andrew proceeded to glare daggers at her. She had no fears, apparently. “”Yes, you can have the next clue, calm yourself. It’s at the stadium.” 

Neil perked up immediately. “The soccer stadium?” 

“That’s the one.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Andrew said, and Neil spun on him. 

“That’s not far from here,” he said, misinterpreting the source of Andrew’s abject frustration. 

“I’m aware,” Andrew muttered.

“Then let’s go, we still have to catch up to any other miserable souls who are searching for The Pot and fight them to the death.”

Andrew sighed. 

He had lost track of how many times he had sighed that night. 

Robin smiled at them again (seriously, how had her face not gone numb by now?) pointing over her shoulder upstage. “Use the back door,” she said. “It’s faster.” 

Neil thanked her, once, Andrew didn’t thank her at all, and then they were outside again, the night air crisp and playful, the stars missing from the sky. 

“Race?” Neil asked, after a minute, his voice light and teasing. 

“Absolutely not,” Andrew replied. Neil just laughed.

(Andrew did not think about bottling the sound. He did  _ not. _ )

((He had known this man for a matter of hours, and he wasn’t about to become some cliche. That was Aaron’s job.))

(It was one night, and no matter how many people liked to pretend that it was never ending, it wasn’t.)

((It wasn’t.))

(It couldn’t be.)

((So really, what was the point of ignoring the inevitable disaster?))

++++

Neil practically skipped the entire way to the soccer stadium. 

He was having far too much fun. 

Which didn’t really make much sense, on all accounts. 

He decided not to think about it too hard, like the true intellectual he was. Matt could have a stroke over the fact that he was enjoying something besides soccer tomorrow. 

For now, he was free to focus on what was right in front of him. 

Namely this: Andrew played with his lip ring when he was thinking, twisting it around and around using his teeth and tongue, and for some reason, Neil couldn’t find a good reason to tear his eyes away when he did. So he just kept looking.

And this: Neil couldn’t figure out what color Andrew’s eyes were. The lighting was always too low. They looked colorless sometimes, and other times, darker than the night that surrounded them. Neil wondered what they would look like in direct sunlight. 

And this: he had yet to see Andrew smile. He wanted to see Andrew smile. He wanted to be the cause of Andrew’s smile. 

(Even if it was there and gone, taking up the space of half a moment. Neil wanted to see it.)

((He tried not to think too hard about that either.))

“Do try not to lose yourself,” Andrew said, as they neared the stadium. 

They could see the crowds from there, the stadium being a wildly popular spot for side games and extra partying. 

After all, it was far more exciting to drink and consume questionable substances right under the noses of the staff. More thrilling. 

Neil guessed that it was a sort of competition in and of itself. See who could be the most subtly illegal, without being caught, for the longest. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Neil replied. “I could always hold your hand, though, if you’re so scared of losing me.” 

The look Andrew shot Neil was poisonous. Neil just grinned at him. 

"God," Andrew muttered, turning away and speeding up. Neil had to press a hand to his mouth to stifle his laugh. 

Seconds later, they were engulfed in the noise. 

See, the thing about crowds, was Neil was only taught how to do one thing in them. 

Disappear. 

_ You are invisible, Abram.  _

_ You are nothing, and you are no one, and that is how you will survive.  _

He hated crowds. 

Andrew shot him a glance over his shoulder, like he knew what Neil was thinking, like was checking to make sure Neil was still behind him. 

Neil raised a challenging eyebrow at him, because he could. 

Andrew looked away. 

_ The clue,  _ Neil reminded himself.  _ We are looking for the clue.  _

Easier said than done. 

Just then, the song pounding over the giant stadium speakers switched, and a chorus of approval went up. 

Someone shoved a drink into Neil's hand, and he passed it on to someone else. 

Someone shoved a drink into Andrew’s hand, and he downed it in one go. 

Neil tried not to roll his eyes and be impressed at the same time. It didn’t work. 

The next time someone shoved a drink into Neil’s hands, Andrew snatched it from him before he could pass it off and drank that too. 

“Easy,” Neil said, even though there was no way Andrew could hear him over the music. 

Andrew flipped him off anyways. 

He said something then that Neil didn’t catch, gesturing with the cup in the vague direction of the locker rooms. 

“What?” Neil asked, even though, once again, Andrew couldn’t hear him. He tried his best to look thoroughly confused. It wasn’t hard. 

Andrew repeated himself, but Neil still didn’t catch it, leaning a little forward in an attempt to hear him better, until Andrew got fed up with the space and the confusion, and simply grabbed Neil by the collar of his shirt and pulled him down so he could get his mouth right next to Neil’s ear. 

“Press box,” Andrew said, but he might as well have been speaking Russian, for all Neil understood. 

The hair on the back of his neck stood up, an involuntary shiver dancing up his spine. 

“What?” He asked again, but significantly more breathless. 

When had it gotten so hot in there? 

Andrew sighed, still right next to Neil’s ear, and Neil’s heart did a whole tumble routine. His lungs, he was almost certain, had forgotten how to properly pull in air. 

“The clue,” Andrew said. “I think it’s in the press box.” 

Neil nodded, because there was nothing else he could think of doing. 

Andrew let go of him, pulling back just slightly. 

Neil stared at him. 

He stared at him, and stared at him, and stared at him, as the music jackhammered it’s way through his skull and they were  _ so close  _ to each other. 

Neil could count Andrew’s freckles if he wanted to. 

And he did want to. 

“Staring,” Andrew said. 

At least Neil thought he did. 

It’s what he looked like he said. 

Neil nodded, again, suddenly unable to tear his eyes away from Andrew’s mouth, unable to refute the obvious. 

“Staring back,” Neil said. 

Andrew frowned at him, ever so slightly. 

Then he drew in a sharp breath and turned, shoving his way through the crowd, aiming for the press box, and assuming Neil would follow him. 

Correctly assuming Neil would follow him. 

It just took him a moment. 

A moment to catch his breath, even though he had not been running. 

A moment to find his heartbeat somewhere in his throat and return it to its rightful place in his chest. 

A moment to close his eyes and attempt to collect himself. 

Just a moment, and then it was over, gone just as quickly as it had come, and Neil could still see Andrew’s retreating form through the clumps and groups of people. 

He took a step to follow. 

And then someone grabbed his wrist, nails digging hard into his skin, and pulled. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone say hi to Neil “Heart Eyes” Josten and perhaps pray for Andrew’s sanity.


	5. They Say It’s Our Fate, but We’re too Late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry in advance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: non consensual drugging, mentions of overdosing, mentions of past abuse

Andrew never had too much to drink. 

He knew his limits, and he stuck to them. 

Control was something that he was wholly unwilling to part with. 

He literally just had two cups of cheap beer. 

So why were the stadium lights insisting on dancing about, and blinding him in the process? 

He reached the door to the stairs of the press box without much trouble, placing a hand on the doorknob to steady himself, and turning to glance over his shoulder at Neil-

Only to find no one behind him. 

Neil wasn't there. 

There was a distinct, and oddly distressing, utter lack of Neil. 

Andrew cursed. 

Not again. 

His eyes went immediately to the space where they had just been, but some group had already moved on, and it was nonexistent. 

The music didn't help. It was loud and bright and pounding, and for some reason, it made him want to close his eyes and never open them again. The bass was doing funny things to his hearing, and he swore he could see the air shivering with the vibrations. 

He had to find Neil. 

Glancing back at the door, he found a neon pink sticky note, right above his eye level, and he snatched it down without checking to see if it was actually the clue. That could wait.

Andrew took a deep breath, and plunged back into the crowd. 

Within moments, he knew that there was no way he would be able to find Neil by combing through the crowd like that. They could be walking circles around each other and never notice, never cross paths. 

It took him far too long to shove his way to the edge of the party, where the music was just a little quieter, but he still couldn’t really breath. 

He had to blink several times to get his eyes to focus again, feeling his heart pounding in his neck, his ears, his fingertips. 

“Hey,” someone said right behind him, and if he had full control of his body he would have put a fist through their face. For some reason, all he could manage was to turn and try not to fall over in the process. “You were here earlier.” 

It was one of the vixens, the one who had given him the red band to identify him as a second year. 

Andrew turned neatly away from her, eye going back to all the places Neil could possibly be, but she grabbed his arm. 

“Wait,” she said, only letting go of him when he stepped back so forcefully that he dislodged her grip. “Are you still looking for Neil Josten?” 

Andrew didn’t reply. 

He kind of felt like he was going to throw up. 

_ What in the fuck was in that drink?  _

“I saw him, like two seconds ago,” the girl said, and suddenly she had his full attention.

“Where?” he snarled, and she took a small step back. 

“Walking out,” she said, pointing behind them. “With Riko.” 

Andrew stopped breathing. 

The music pounded, the light warped, someone screamed. If it was a delighted scream or one of fear, he couldn’t tell. 

“Are you okay?” the girl asked. 

Andrew saw white. 

+++

“Get your hands off of me,” Neil snapped, doing his level best to twist out of his attacker's grip, and failing. “What the fuck?” 

The man didn't listen. 

In the semi darkness, Neil couldn’t figure out if he recognized him or not. 

“I said fucking let go,” he demanded, panic very quickly replacing all the oxygen in his lungs. 

_ Zero,  _ Lola’s voice purred in his head.  _ Time’s up Junior.  _

_ You’re dead,  _ Neil thought viciously back.  _ All of you are dead.  _

The phantom pain of the skin below his eye burning flared up anyway. He swore he could feel a blade pressing into the palms of his hands. 

Neil dug his heels in, fighting to get free. The man’s grip didn’t loosen; if anything, it tightened. 

“Oh Nathaniel,” Riko’s voice materialized from somewhere in the crowd, and suddenly he was right there, haughty and smirking. “You’re going to have to try harder than that.” He raised a single eyebrow, probably intending to look intimidating but succeeding only in making himself look like a cartoon villain. “Sound familiar?” 

Neil stared at him for a moment, his arm smarting where the guy's fingers dug into his skin. There were probably going to be bruises there tomorrow. 

“Fuck you,” he said, at last. 

Riko made a  _ tsk tsk  _ sound, shaking his head. 

“Where are your manners?” he asked. “Someone ought to teach you a lesson.”

“What?” Neil asked, disbelieving and a little outraged. “By kidnapping me? Is that what’s happening right now?” 

Riko didn’t reply, motioning to the man keeping Neil in place to follow him. 

“What is wrong with you?” Neil spat, once again struggling as he was bodily dragged out of the stadium and away from the crowds. No one spared them so much as a glance. “Seriously, are you so threatened by my presence that you have to resort to dragging me away and attempting to murder me in an alley?” 

“Quiet” Riko snapped. Two more people joined their little entourage. Neil wondered absently if Riko had paid them to help him or if they owed him something. 

“This is pathetic,” Neil said. “I don’t understand why you think you’re going to accomplish anything with this. I have survived so much worse than you, Riko Moriyama, but I guess you’re used to being second best aren’t you?” 

Riko turned around so fast that Neil barely had time to close his mouth before Riko was backhanding him, hard. 

“Say that again and I’ll cut out your tongue,” Riko snarled. 

Neil blinked the stars out of his eyes, the tell tale warmth of blood blooming across his cheek. Probably from that ridiculous ring that Riko insisted on wearing, the one he claimed was from his father. 

He looked Riko in the eyes after spitting at his feet, just to make sure there was no blood in his mouth. “I’d like to see you try.” 

Riko turned an alarming shade of purple. 

“Get him in the car,” he told the man still holding onto Neil’s arm. “He should pass out any minute now.” 

Neil cursed as he was shoved unceremoniously into the back seat of Riko’s hideous BMW, hitting the back of his head in the process. 

“Pass out?” he asked, because what the fuck? 

Riko ignored him, taking his place in the passenger seat and making eye contact with Neil through the rearview mirror. 

“How do you feel about dashboard lighters, Nathaniel?” he asked, and both of the car doors slammed closed. 

+++

Riko. Riko had Neil. 

Andrew was going to murder someone. 

The music seemed to just be getting louder. Louder and clearer. 

He could make out almost every single word, though he had never heard the song before. 

_ (They say it’s our fate, and we’re too late.) _

_ Too late. _

_ Too late. _

_ Too late. _

Those two words echoed in his head, over and over again. 

He was always too late. 

Always just a moment, a heartbeat, a breath too late.

He needed to get to Neil. 

Everything was so loud. He couldn't think. Couldn’t see. Couldn't breathe. 

_ (I know, I know, that we’re all pretending,) _

_ ((this night is never ending)) _

He needed to —  there. Just outside. 

_ (And if you need somebody) _

He could see Kevin through the glass doors, laughing at something Jeremy must have said. 

_ Andrew, come quickly.  _

Renee’s voice, from within a memory. 

_ It’s your brother.  _

Andrew yanked open the doors leading to the stadium just as Kevin reached to do the same. 

“Kevin,” he said, and he didn’t recognize his own voice. 

_ It’s your brother.  _

_ It’s Aaron.  _

_ It’s Neil. _

_ It’s Neil. _

_ It’s Neil.  _

“Riko has Neil.”

_ ((It’s a Disaster Party.)) _

+++

**Five Months Earlier**

Andrew startled awake to the sound of someone knocking on the door, the rhythm directly juxtaposing the steady beep of a heart monitor. 

_ A heart monitor?  _

It took him a very delayed three seconds to remember where he was, and why he was there, and then fear and panic and blinding rage threatened to squeeze the life out of his lungs, all over again. 

In the bed, Aaron slept peacefully, deeply, his skin no longer feverish and his breathing returned to normal. 

In the doorway, Kevin Day stood, his face drenched in guilt as he stared at Aaron’s prone form. 

Careful to make as little noise as possible, even though Aaron probably wouldn’t wake up, Andrew stood and crossed the room, motioning Kevin to get out and shutting the door softly behind them. 

“What do you want?” he asked, his voice scratchy from disuse. 

The look Kevin gave him was pure anguish. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his eyes straying back to the door. “I’m so sorry.” 

Andrew barely refrained from returning to the room and slamming the door in Kevin’s face. 

“What do you want?” he asked again. 

Kevin pressed a hand over his mouth, like he always did when he was too close to the edge and unable to stop peering over. “He didn’t mean it,” he said, his voice slightly muffled. 

Andrew must have misheard him. 

“What?”

“Riko,” Kevin said, taking away his hand and looking distressed. “He didn’t mean it.”

And Andrew, god, Andrew saw red. 

“Don’t you dare,” he said, his voice deadly. “Don’t you fucking dare defend him.” 

“He wouldn’t-”

“Wouldn’t he?” Andrew demanded, his voice getting steadily quieter, in a desperate attempt to keep from screaming. “Aaron almost  _ died,  _ and it wasn’t an accident. If Seth fucking Gordon hadn’t found him when he did, he would be dead, but now he has to deal with the consequences of living. He is a recovering  _ addict,  _ Kevin, and Riko  _ knew that.”  _

Kevin made a strangled sound, reaching a hand out to steady himself against the wall. 

“Why?” he asked, his voice choked. “Why would he-”

“To get back at me,” Andrew snapped. “He feels threatened, and he’s a psychopath, and all he knows how to do is hurt people.”

Kevin flinched. “Don’t say that.” 

“Why? Because he’s your boyfriend?” 

“Because he’s not like that.” 

“Stop defending him,” Andrew spat, and he was so close to shouting. So close. “You are so willfully blind when it comes to Riko, and I’m sick of it.” Andrew reached back to open the door. To go sit by his brother’s hospital bed until he woke up again. “I’m done.” 

Kevin reached out as if to grab him and pull him back, only to retract his hand at the last second. 

“Wait,” he said, desperately. “What? Done?”

“I’m done,” Andrew repeated, getting in Kevin’s face. “Done with Riko’s bullshit, done with soccer.” He shoved open the door, shooting the last words over his shoulder. “Done with you. Have a nice life.”

He didn’t even try to soften the bang of the door slamming shut between them, the sound like a gunshot in the silence left in his wake. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *laughs nervously*
> 
> Oops


	6. And if You Need Somebody (It’s a Disaster Party)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin grows a spine, Andrew takes a nap, and Neil continues to call people by the wrong names. 
> 
> Oh and there’s a teeny tiny epilogue. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well would you look at that, it’s the last chapter. 
> 
> I would just like to take a moment here to thank all of you lovelies for reading and all of your amazing comments, you never fail to make me smile. Also, thank you nightquills for the flipping awesome song that won’t leave my brain. It has taken up permanent residence. It has taken the place of at leases two of my nonexistent brain cells. So thanks for that. :) 
> 
> TW: non consensual drugging

**12:39 AM**

Andrew reached the car just before it started moving, yanking the passenger side open, barely taking time to be surprised that it was unlocked, and grabbing a fist full of Riko’s shirt to bodily drag him out of the car and deposit him, cursing and sputtering, on the parking lot pavement. 

Kevin was right behind him, Jeremy and Jean in tow. 

“Keep him here,” Andrew told them, not stopping to see if they obeyed. 

He forced open the back door next, and seconds later Neil was out, a cut bleeding sluggishly on his cheek, but otherwise largely unharmed. 

“Are you hurt?” Andrew asked, just to be sure, and Neil had the audacity to smile at him, shaking his head. 

“No,” he said, and then, because he was the worst, he tacked on the end: “Thank you.” 

“Don’t,” Andrew said, glaring at him. 

“What?” Neil asked. “Don’t thank you?”

“Don’t look at me like that.” 

Neil laughed, and the sound warped around Andrew’s head, becoming elastic and echoing. He closed his eyes against the onslaught, breathing in through his nose, but the dizziness just worsened. 

Then Jeremy said, “Don’t touch him,” and he refocused on the problem at hand. 

Jean was holding onto Riko by his sleeve, like he didn’t want to actually touch his skin to Riko’s, and Jeremy was standing between him and Kevin. 

“Kevin,” Riko was saying, his voice dripping with false sweetness. “What do you think you’re doing?” 

“Don’t talk to him either,” Andrew said, inserting himself in front of both Jeremy and Kevin. “And I could ask you the same question.”

Riko’s fake sweetness dissolved instantly, his smile twisting into a grimace upon laying eyes on Andrew. 

“Oh,” he said, disdainfully. “I thought you got rid of your guard dog, Kevin. Really, we talked about this.” 

“He’s not a guard dog,” Kevin snapped, gently shoving Jeremy out of the way and coming to stand beside Andrew. “And he’s not my anything, just like I’m not yours. So why don’t you do us all a favor and fuck off before I call the campus police on you.” 

Riko looked shocked for all of two seconds before his rage took over. 

“For what?” he asked, “What was I doing wrong?” 

“You had Neil in the back of your car,” Kevin practically spat. They were both seething with quiet fury. Riko’s was expected, but Kevin’s was so much sweeter. Andrew had been waiting for this moment for over a year. 

“He wanted to be there,” Riko said, and Neil scoffed. “We had agreed earlier, I was going to come pick him up from the stadium.” 

“You are a terrible liar,” Neil said. “And a coward.” 

Andrew’s vision went completely black for one moment, then two, and when it returned, Riko was getting in his car and driving off, while Jeremy was wrapping his arms around Kevin from behind and placing his chin on Kevin’s shoulder. 

Andrew watched as Jean came up to both of them and slipped his hand into Kevin’s, and he wanted to feel something more than the utter blankness that was buzzing around in his head, but he didn’t know quite what. 

“Andrew,” Neil said, coming into his frame of vision, his tone suggesting that it was not the first time he had tried to get Andrew’s attention. “Are you okay?” 

Andrew’s eyes struggled to focus on him, and in the process, the world tipped violently. 

“Andrew?” Neil asked, his voice dipping into something closer to alarm. 

“Dizzy,” Andrew murmured, and then it was like all the sound was sucked from the room in one gasp, taking the progression of time with it. 

He found himself reaching out in a vain attempt to ground himself, and Neil met him halfway, his hand latching onto Andrew's and tightening, ever so slightly. 

Everything slowed to a crawl, his vision dimming, the world spinning like a top. 

The last thing he heard clearly was Neil saying, “‘ _ Drew look at me. Andrew. Andrew open your eyes. _ ” 

“Lock the doors,” he murmured, nonsensically, to Neil, to the night, to no one, and slipped into a quiet darkness. 

+++

“ _ God, what do we do?”  _

_ “Nothing. Let him sleep it off.” _

_ “This is my fault. It’s happening again. I-“ _

_ “Stop.” _

_ “It’s all my fault. If I had just  _ listened-“

_ “Kevin, stop. Just. Stop. This is no one’s fault but Riko’s.”  _

_ “I’m sorry Neil.” _

_ “Don’t.” _

_ “I’m so sorry.”  _

_ “Kevin, look at me. This is not your fault. Andrew is going to be fine. Riko doesn't have any power over you anymore. And he didn’t hurt me.” _

_ “Fucking god.” _

_ “Now go call Nicky or something. Tell him what happened. In your room, or you might wake him up.”  _

  
  


**5:32 AM**

Andrew woke, violently.

Before he was fully aware of his surroundings, or even in full control of his body, he was lashing out, his arm connecting with something soft as he sat bolt upright and proceeded to forget how to breathe. His vision went completely black again for a moment, while somehow still managing to make the room spin uncontrollably. 

It took every ounce of strength in his body to keep from falling right off the couch. 

“Andrew,” someone said, and he barely refrained from lashing out at them too, pulling back at the last second to lock eyes with Neil. 

Neil, who was kneeling in front of him, his hands held up and in full view. 

Neil, who was telegraphing his movements so that Andrew could resist if he wanted to when Neil gently guided him into laying back down. 

Neil, who was saying his name again. 

“Where the fuck am I?” Andrew asked, his voice thin and dry. 

“In my dorm,” Neil replied. “Kevin is in his room with Jean and Jeremy, and the front door is locked.” 

Andrew blinked at him, taking that in. 

“What the fuck happened?” He asked, after a moment. 

Neil started picking at a loose thread coming out of the couch. Andrew used to pick at that exact thread when this was his dorm room. His and Kevin’s. He would pick at it mostly when the night was being particularly unkind, and neither he or Kevin could sleep, so they would end up watching the history channel until the sun came up. 

“I think Riko spiked my drink,” Neil said, a little crease materializing between his eyebrows. 

Andrew focused on it for a moment, before fixing his eyes back on Neil’s. 

“I drank yours,” he said. 

Neil nodded. 

Andrew closed his eyes for a second, then two. 

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” he said softly. When he opened his eyes again, Neil was smiling, ever so slightly. 

“I’ll help you hide the body,” he said. 

Somehow, Andrew didn’t think he was joking. 

Just then, there was an aggressive knocking at the door, and Neil moved to stand. 

Andrew had the strangest urge to reach out and take his hand, to keep him there, within touching distance. 

He didn’t. 

The door was just out of sight, but Andrew heard him unlock it and pull it open on protesting hinges. 

There was a beat of silence, and then Neil said, from out of sight, his voice disbelieving, “You have a doppelgänger?” 

Andrew put a hand over his eyes, wanting, absurdly, to laugh. 

Probably because there were still drugs in his system. 

Whatever. 

“What the fuck, Andrew?” Aaron demanded, his voice drawing closer. Andrew didn’t remove his hand from his eyes. 

“Who invited him?” He asked no one in particular. 

“Kevin did, asshole,” Aaron snapped. Andrew peeked through his fingers at his brother. 

He looked furious. 

Worse than that, he looked scared. 

Andrew knew his own face well enough to recognize that. 

“I will ask once again,” Aaron said. “What the fuck?” 

“Is that Aaron?” Kevin asked, emerging from the direction of the rooms with Jean and Jeremy close behind him. 

“Who invited  _ him _ ?” Andrew asked, taking his hand away from his face. 

“It is literally my dorm,” Kevin said, then apparently registering the fact that Andrew was awake, his face morphed into a sad combination of surprised and guilty. Always fucking guilty. 

“ _ Andrew,”  _ Aaron said. 

“Aaron,” Andrew returned, fixing his eyes back on his brother. 

He still looked sick with fear, trying and failing to hide it under five layers of anger. 

That simply would not do. 

Andrew dragged himself into a sitting position, and at least four people made aborted moves to stop him. 

“Touch me and you’ll lose a hand,” he said, calmly, as a general warning. “Aaron.” Aaron glared at him. “I’m fine.” 

Kevin laughed, but it was humorless. “That’s Neil’s line. You can’t steal it.” 

“Fuck you,” Neil said with no heat, from his position almost out of sight by the door. Andrew glanced at him and then away again. 

“You have been fucking drugged,” Aaron said, fury rolling off him in waves. “Do not tell me that you are fine.” 

“I’m fine,” Andrew said again, just to be contrary. Aaron looked like he wanted to strangle him. Andrew shrugged. “No one died,” he said. “We got Neil out. Kevin grew a spine. I count that as wins all around.” 

Kevin made a strangled sound behind him. Andrew didn’t acknowledge him. 

“No one died,” Aaron repeated, disbelieving. “That’s your criteria for ‘fine”.”

Andrew looked at him, unimpressed. “Yes.” 

“Oh my god,” Aaron said, turning away from him in frustration, and then basically all of them started talking at once. 

Jeremy tried to get Kevin’s attention while Kevin started to apologize and Aaron grumbled under his breath, and it was very suddenly too much. 

Andrew was up and across the room in seconds, his entire body protesting at the movement, but he didn’t slow down. 

He tugged on Neil’s sleeve as he passed, and didn’t check to see if he was following him out the door. 

It took far too much out of him to mount the stairs up to the roof of the fox tower, the lock giving easily under his practiced hand. 

The view at the top was like a slap in the face, leaving him reeling more than he already was, but sharpening everything the way only fear could do. It shocked the breath back into his lungs, like he was hoping it would do. 

He hadn’t been up there in forever. 

The sky was on the verge of growing light, like it was just thinking about the coming sunrise and consequently summoning it. 

“What time is it?” Andrew asked, after a moment. 

When Neil didn’t answer right away, he turned to find Neil studying him. 

“Five forty ish,” Neil replied, his expression unchanging. 

Andrew looked at him. “What?” 

Neil opened his mouth, only to close it again. 

He frowned, ever so slightly, and tried again. 

“You truly don’t care, do you?” He said. 

Andrew blinked. 

“What?” 

“You don’t care,” Neil said again. “That Riko drugged you.” 

Now it was Andrew’s turn to frown. 

“He was trying to drug  _ you _ ,” he said. 

He cut himself off before he could say the rest. 

Before he could say,  _ I am furious about that. _

Neil apparently didn’t like that answer though. 

“But it’s you that suffered.”

“I’d rather it be me than anyone else.” 

And for a split second, Neil looked angry. Deeply, profoundly angry. 

“I wouldn’t,” he said, and his voice growing quieter. 

Andrew stared at him.

“We don’t know each other,” he pointed out, his voice growing softer to match Neil’s. 

“Don’t we?” 

Andrew stared at him some more, with his vivid blue eyes and his fiery hair, and all of his scars. He thought, in that moment, that he would do anything, give anything, to know Neil Josten. To really know him. 

“We don’t,” he said. 

Neil gave him a tiny, sad smile. 

“So?” he asked. 

Andrew blinked, the world doing a little spin. 

“Hey,” Neil said, catching onto his dizziness, but Andrew held up a hand to shut him up, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. 

In for four, hold for seven, out for eight, just like Bee taught him. 

“Don’t you dare fall over just because you refuse to hold onto something,” Neil said, and he definitely wasn’t just talking about being dizzy. “I’m right here.” 

Andrew took another deep breath. 

“I hate you,” he said. 

He could practically  _ feel  _ Neil smiling at him. 

“Stop.”

“What?” Neil asked, with false innocence. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Stop it.” 

_ “What?” _

“Your face. Stop it.”

Neil laughed, and Andrew forced himself to open his eyes. Forced himself to look.

He had to look almost immediately away again, turning completely on his heel and head in back for the stairs. 

Fuck Neil Josten, honestly. 

“Where are you going now?” Neil called after him, scrambling to catch up. 

“I have a debt to settle,” Andrew replied. “It’s not eight yet.” 

“Hang on, wait a minute,” Neil said, speeding up to block the doorway. Andrew glared at him. “You should be resting.” 

Andrew glared at him harder. 

“We’ve already discussed this,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“You are  _ not, _ ” Neil said, but he was smiling. “You literally almost just passed out.” 

“Lies,” Andrew said. “Lies and slander. Let me through.”

“No,” Neil said. “Also, Kevin is right, those two words are horrible and I need you to never say them again.” 

“Fuck you, I’m fine, and you’re about to be stabbed if you don’t move within the next three seconds.”

“You’re bluffing,” Neil said. “And reverse uno card for that fuck you.”

“Do you even know how to play uno?”

“Of course not.”

“Of course not,” Andrew repeated. 

It had been more than three seconds. 

Andrew sighed. 

“We don’t even have the last clue,” Neil said. 

Andrew held up a finger, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the neon pink sticky note from the press box door, praying that it was a clue and not just a sad, random sticky note. 

It was the clue. 

“Oh my god, you’re kidding,” Neil said. 

Andrew waved it in his face for good measure, and he snatched it out of Andrew’s grip. 

“It just says,  _ highest point on campus. _ ” Neil frowned. “Seriously, these clues are shit.” 

Andrew would have to agree, but he also didn’t really care. 

“That’s here,” he said, and Neil looked up. 

They both turned to look at the little concrete room that held the door to the stairs and housed the extremely old fashioned antenna on top at the same time. 

Neil moved first, and Andrew went to follow him, but Neil said, almost immediately, without turning around, “Don’t even think about it.” 

He scaled the wall in seconds. Andrew tried not to be impressed. 

He failed. 

At the top, Neil let out a triumphant  _ ah hah _ , reaching out and snatching up a drawstring bag from out of sight. 

“Well would you look at that?” He said, hanging off the side first and jumping neatly down. 

“It’s our lucky day,” Andrew said. “Or night, rather. Actually, I guess it's morning. Whatever.” 

“I don’t believe in luck,” Neil said, handing him the bag. 

“Not even the bad sort?” Andrew asked, taking the bag from him. He didn’t look inside. 

“Perhaps I can make an exception.” 

Andrew turned on his heel then, and Neil didn’t stop him, following him down the stairs, as behind them, the sky melted into a heady, bruised lavender to combat the night.

  
  


**6:59 AM**

“You found it.”

“Don’t sound so surprised, Samantha.” 

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.”

"Did your stray just call me Samantha?" 

"Quite possibly. Don't take it personally." 

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“I can tell you to do whatever I so please.” 

“Good for you. Absolutely amazing. Would you like a sticker or a sucker for your outstandingness?”

“A sucker, obviously. We’re even now right?” 

“We are indeed.” 

“Great. Goodbye forever.” 

“Nice try, Minyard. You aren’t getting rid of me that easily.” 

  
  


**An Undisclosed Amount of Time Later**

Neil opened the lid of his water bottle and dumped the whole thing over his head. 

He did it mostly to piss Kevin off (he always said that water was for  _ hydrating,  _ not  _ bathing, Jesus Chirst  _ Neil) _ ,  _ but also because it was fucking hot out there. 

The winter had been weak, as always, and Spring was making its presence known with a vengeance. 

Neil loved it. 

“Let’s go!” Kevin yelled from the middle of the soccer field. “I was ready yesterday!”

Neil didn’t think Kevin ever learned or grasped the concept of playing for fun, but that was okay. 

This wasn’t practice, so no one needed to really listen to him, even though they all did anyways, out of habit. 

It worked. 

There was usually no one in the stands during these games; everyone was on the field playing, but just then, when Neil glanced up, he caught sight of someone mouthing the bleacher steps. 

He couldn't stop the smile that overtook his face. He didn’t even try. 

“Josten!” Kevin yelled, but Neil ignored him, dropping his water bottle and jogging to the stands, deftly scaling the fence and placing himself right in front of Andrew. 

Andrew looked severely unimpressed, but Neil wasn’t fooled. 

“Hi,” he said, breathlessly. 

Andrew frowned at him. 

“You’re wet,” he said. 

“Astute observation.” 

Andrew hummed, and Neil’s smile grew just a little lopsided. 

“It’s just water,” he reassured Andrew, and sure enough, after one more moment of consideration, Andrew wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. 

It was just as earth shattering as the first, and the second, and the fourth and the eighteenth and the whatever-number-they-were-on-th. 

Neil didn’t care if that made him a romantic, or sappy, or just plain biased. 

Andrew kissed him like the world stopped and started with Neil’s mouth, every time. 

Andrew pulled back, not removing his hand from Neil’s neck, and Neil had to take a moment to get his eyes to open again. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Andrew said. 

Neil couldn’t disagree, so he didn’t. 

“Come to play?” He asked, giddy to the core. 

“No,” Andrew replied. A blatant lie. 

“Then why are you wearing your soccer cleats?” Neil asked, his smile devious. 

Andrew tried to kiss it off of him. 

It only kind of worked. 

“Don’t get used to it,” Andrew said, but he let go of Neil and stepped around him, towards the field, smacking their shoulders together on the way by. 

Neil laughed, scrambling to catch up with him, and he felt so shivery, so bright and full to the brim. 

He thought that, perhaps, if one were to bottle the sun and keep it in a mason jar, that was what it would feel like. 

Warm and blinding, and impossible. So overwhelmingly impossible. 

Someone turned on a speaker, and music blasted from it, sweeping them up in the melody. 

(And if you need somebody.)

Neil took a deep breath, sprinting back onto the field, eyes following Andrew’s progress to the opposite goal. 

He had bets to win. 

Egoes to crush. 

A game to fucking obliterate. 

And the day was still so terribly young. 

((It’s a Disaster Party.))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really really hope you enjoyed yourselves and had as much fun reading this as I had writing it. Thank you again, y’all are amazing. :)


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